1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing patterned ferroelectric media, and more particularly, to a method of transforming patterned precursor features into ferroelectrics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Media having a plurality of high-density patterned ferroelectric features are used in probe storage devices.
Each feature in a ferroelectric film corresponds to one bit of memory. In order to improve the recording density of media using a ferroelectric film, the size of a feature corresponding to a unit memory should be reduced and accordingly, the memory bit density per unit area of media should be increased. In order to increase the bit density, the ferroelectric film must be formed to have a small thickness of approximately 2-10 nm, for example. In addition to an increase in bit density, improvement of uniformity of a physical property of the media is important. That is, a ferroelectric substance used in forming features has a fine grain structure or may be a single crystal having small interface defects or may be defect free.
It is well-known that a ferroelectric film is damaged in an etching process during lithography. For example, a PTO (PbTiO3) film is formed on an electrode, such as Pt, and then, the PTO film is patterned into features using lithography etc. During etching, PTO is damaged and the physical property of PTO is degraded. Thus, damage to the PTO is desirably prevented. In addition, a method of manufacturing PZT is the same as the above-mentioned method. Thus, there is also a need to prevent or suppress damage to PZT caused by patterning.